Tuesday, March 6, 2012

The Necessary Correction of Climate Science Is Still Far Away

Update 10 March, 2012: I have realized that my claim here, that the blackbody temperature of the Earth-plus-Atmosphere system is 279K, is wrong, and have posted on this at "My Own Blackbody Error". That claim should no longer be taken to be my scientific position.

The following is an updated version of my comment submitted in response to the latest John O'Sullivan post, at climaterealists.com:

Lay readers need to know they are being fed incompetent science by all sides of this "climate science war". For example:

The article states: "Climate scientists then commit a very grave error in the numbers: they equate the energy flux density of the incoming power to that of the outgoing power (not a requirement of the Law of Conservation of Energy (LCE))."

The scientific truth is, equating incoming and outgoing power IS a fundamental requirement. The consensus merely does it at the wrong place--the surface of the Earth--rather than beyond the atmosphere, where the requirement is "radiation in equals radiation out", which is what the ruling Stefan-Boltzmann formula specifies (but the current generation of scientists, both consensus and skeptic, refuse to adhere to that).

Both sides are ignoring the truly definitive evidence, that not only disproves the greenhouse effect (as correctly stated, and as understood by any interested layperson--of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide), but corrects a whole handful of basic mistakes common to both sides in the debate, and which is the necessary starting point for a re-examination of climate science.

The scandal is, both sides feel smugly free to ignore the need to fundamentally correct climate science, they all think it is just the "other guys" that are wrong, yet they both pay heed to the same false, and thus misleading, concepts (such as, that the radiating temperature of the Earth-plus-atmosphere system is 255K, or more telling, that peer-reviewed literature--and nothing else--is verified correct science; the true radiating temperature is 279K, and only hard facts verify scientific theory, not a few anonymous reviewers subject to conflicting interests and blind, dogmatic prejudices, instead of to the simple physical truth and the integrity of science). The whole situation is insane, to any competent physical scientist, and laypersons should not be taken in by any of it. Just remember that the direct comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth is the definitive evidence that disproves the consensus, and fundamentally corrects current, entrenched, mistaken beliefs among the scientists on both sides.